365 Things That Inspire Me

I also do posts for my clay group, beads-of-clay.org. Twice now, I have posted pictures that I took on walks with my dogs in a park near here, 3 Creeks. I post these as creative inspiration for my fellow artists and jewelry designers. These posts have been so well received that I decided to start a blog with daily inspiration in the form of pictures, quotes and poems. These pictures will be things from my immediate environment that I find inspirational or beautiful; textures, colors, contrasts, animals, unusual things, intriguing things. A daily dose of wonder....


"Finally brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, and of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, THINK on these things."


"Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush is afire with God, but only he who sees takes off his shoes."
E.B. Browning

It's all for Joy!

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Monday, August 30, 2010

August 30, 2010 The Sanskrit

Salutation to the Dawn

Look to this day, for it is Life,
The very Life of Life.
Within its brief span, lies all the verities,
and realities of your existence.
The Bliss of Growth.
The Glory of Action.
The Splendor of Beauty.
 For yesterday is but a Dream
And tomorrow is but a Vision
But today well lived make every
Yesterday  a dream of Happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of Hope.
Look well therefore to this day.

-The Sanskrit
                  

Sunday, August 29, 2010

August 29, 2010 Bees n' Butterfly


"All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body nature is and God the soul."
Poe
Here are some pictures from my walk yesterday in Franklin Park.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

August 28, 2010 Burgess Falls

"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away."  I don't know who wrote it...
This summer my friend and I took a vacation and our first stop was her cabin in TN.  She took me to a wonderful park that she and her sister had just stumbled on one year.  It is Burgess Falls State Park and there are 3 waterfalls there with an easy hike to the highest one, which is 132 feet.  This was an unexpected treat.  Here are some pictures I took.

Friday, August 27, 2010

August 27, 2010 Flowers


"If you ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it....But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life." 

  -Frank Lloyd Wright

Isn't all of our artwork an investment in beauty?  Today I am doing a tribute to flowers.  My front yard is full of beautiful flowers, and I have a fish pond surrounded by them.  I have had a heron fishing in my pond the last 2 summers and he took all of my big goldfish.  But nature compensated this year, because I have about 100 babies in the pond.  I don't know what I will do with them all!  The netting is too protect the fish from the bird, it must have worked because the bird hasn't come back for a couple of months.

My front garden.  The frog is a gourd that I grew and painted.
I had trouble with my dahlias this year, one of my favorite flowers.  I planted about 9 bulbs and finally at the end of July, 1 of them bloomed!  I have 2 blooming now, and the others have buds.  Maybe I will get to see them in Sept.  We had an unusually hot summer with temps above 90 many days...maybe that's why they haven't bloomed.


My fish pond, a frog has been living here too

Thursday, August 26, 2010

August 26, 2010 Swans

For my first page I am going to post a picture of a swan family that was living across the street from me in a series of ponds.  We used to have farm land around us, but the land has been sold off and warehouses are being built all around us.  One good thing about the building is that every warehouse has a pond.

While driving to work one day, I was delighted to see a pair of swans in the water.  Then for a couple of months they disappeared.  I started to wonder, could they be incubating eggs?  Sure enough, a few weeks later the pair had become a family.  I wanted to photograph them, but I was sure they would swim away when they saw me.  Instead of swimming away, they swam towards me, got out of the water, and proceeded to cross the road right in front of me!  One of the adults even posed for me quite nicely.
He (she?) posed for me quite nicely!